N.J. residents born in Puerto Rico are required to get new birth certificates to curb forgeries

Tim Farrell/The Star-LedgerEddie Rosado of Elizabeth, sits with his mom, Celestina Rosa. All Puerto Ricans have to apply for birth certificates -- 400,000 of them in Jersey, 4 million in the U.S. -- due to anti-fraud measures by the P.R. government.
ELIZABETH -- At El Palmar, a restaurant where Puerto Rican maps dot the wall and the sopa de pollo arrives as a steamy orange broth with potatoes and noodles, the chatter last week turned to a little-known issue that is nonetheless important to all native Puerto Ricans, regardless of age.

Birth certificates.

It turns out that in December, the Puerto Rican government passed an unusual law that will invalidate, as of July 1, all birth certificates in existence for people born in Puerto Rico. The goal was to prevent fraud and identity theft. But neither the law nor the reasons behind it were well-publicized, and many Puerto Ricans learned only last week, from news accounts, that they will have to apply for valid birth certificates.

"I’m going to try to do it as soon as possible," Wilfredo Rodriguez, 63, of Elizabeth, said Wednesday between spoonfuls of chicken soup. "I’m retired, so I need it for medical issues ... But I don’t see the real need for it (the change)."

The reason for the change, according to the Puerto Rican Federal Affairs Administration, is rampant fraud involving stolen Puerto Rican birth certificates. The new ones being issued will use technology designed to prevent forgery, the government says.

Puerto Rican birth certificates have been involved in 40 percent of the 8,000 cases of passport fraud investigated by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, according to a copy of the law passed by the Puerto Rican Senate. Stolen birth certificates, sold on the black market for up to $10,000, have been used to illegally obtain passports and other government documents, according to the government.

Hudson County has its own experience with fraud involving birth certificates. Since 2004, due to past sales of fraudulent birth certificates, the U.S. State Department has not accepted birth records issued by the county. Residents requesting birth certificates have had to apply to their municipalities or, if they live in Jersey City or Secaucus, to the state office of vital statistics in Trenton.

The norms of government transactions in Puerto Rico, where people often submit copies of birth certificates rather than just presenting them, have facilitated the fraud, according to the government. Those norms will change come July 1, when, under the new law, no transaction in Puerto Rico, public or private, can require submission of original birth certificates. People born in Puerto Rico, a commonwealth of the United States, are U.S. citizens.

The requirement for an entire population to purchase identification at the same time has struck many people as a bureaucratic nightmare waiting to happen.

"A lot of people don’t know about it. Some of the community’s leadership doesn’t know about it," said Lydia Valencia, executive director of the Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey, in Lakewood. "Where do you go? How do you do it? I have no idea. And if I have no idea, imagine others."

That, too, is explained on the government website, www.prfaa.com. Copies are $5. Additional copies are $4. The fees are waived for veterans and people over 60.

New Jersey has about 400,000 residents of Puerto Rican descent, a population scattered across the state from Paterson, Newark and Elizabeth to New Brunswick and Vineland. About 125,000 of those people were born in Puerto Rico and stand to be affected by the new law.

Yet they will not be flooding any government offices in New Jersey. Applications, printed off a link from the website, are to be sent to the Puerto Rico Vital Statistics Record Office in San Juan, with a copy of a valid government-issued photo ID; a money order with the fee; and a self-addressed stamped envelop. The vital statistics office’s address is listed on the website.

Community organizations whose clients include Puerto Ricans, such as La Casa de Don Pedro in Newark, are giving out copies of the form.

The government asked that people with other government-issued identifying documents, such as a passport or driver’s license, wait to request a new birth certificate until after the July 1 deadline, to avoid a rush.

The owner of El Palmar, Eddie Rosado, a 36-year-old native Puerto Rican who has lived in New Jersey for 23 years, said the law does not bother him. Then again, he has a passport and a driver’s license for identification and rarely needs to show a birth certificate.

"If it’s for security, I’m for it 100 percent," he said. "It would be a good idea so people don’t go selling them."